Rick Holmes: Conventions matter

Rick Holmes

Friday

Aug 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMAug 29, 2008 at 8:09 PM

I know it's fashionable to dismiss modern political conventions as overstaged and boring. It's been decades since a convention opened with any doubt over who the nominee would be. The residual pageantry from the days of contested conventions, from funny hats to pointless floor demonstrations, is mere backdrop for carefully scripted, four-day infomercials.

I know it's fashionable to dismiss modern political conventions as overstaged and boring. It's been decades since a convention opened with any doubt over who the nominee would be. The residual pageantry from the days of contested conventions, from funny hats to pointless floor demonstrations, is mere backdrop for carefully scripted, four-day infomercials.

But conventions are a critical ordeal in the reality TV show that presidential campaigns have become. Points scored, impressions made and disasters large and small during convention week have often been reflected in November results.

That's doubly true for the convention that opened in Denver with polls showing the presidential race in a statistical tie. Now that the Democrats have delivered their best shot - and quite a shot it was - the stakes are even higher for Republicans this week in Minnesota.

A chaotic convention can doom a nominee. When the tear gas outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago sparked toxic words inside - Abe Ribicoff screaming from the podium about "Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago" and Mayor Richard Daley shaking his fist in response - it was clear the Democrats wouldn't go united into the fall campaign.

Four years later, Democrats mismanaged their convention so badly - George McGovern's acceptance speech began well after midnight - that they never recovered.

Even carefully scripted events can have unintended effects. At the Republicans' 1992 convention, tirades by social conservatives Pat Buchanan and Marilyn Quayle scared enough moderates to perhaps have cost George H.W. Bush re-election. The Democrats landed some blows that year at their convention, with an unintended consequence that came later: Texas Governor Ann Richards' cracks about Daddy Bush ("born with a silver foot in his mouth") inspired his son to run against her - and beat her - two years later.

The convention script John Kerry wrote four years ago was too heavy-handed in pushing the military part of his biography: Kerry leaned into the punch the swiftboaters were aiming at his jaw. And Kerry went soft on Bush, snipping the harshest attacks out of some actors' speeches.

Measured against this history, Democrats have to feel good about the show they put on in Denver. They hit the right emotional notes, especially through Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama's speeches on Monday, humanizing politics for new viewers with little appetite for policy issues. Bill and Hillary Clinton said all the right things, and Hillary's appearance on the convention floor to move Barack Obama to be nominated by acclamation added icing to the unity cake.

Yes, there are some Hillary backers who still can't warm to Obama, for whatever reason. But given the clear policy differences between Obama and McCain, few of them will still be bitter enough in November to cast a Republican ballot. The rest of America is more than ready to see the Bill and Hill soap opera go off the air for a few months.

Obama's acceptance speech more than met the mile-high expectations set by the four-day buildup, the historic resonances and the stadium setting. David Gergen called it "less a speech than a symphony."

The speech wove together biography and policy. Obama was more specific than he has been, with just enough of the soaring rhetoric to remind viewers how he got there. He was far tougher on McCain than anyone expected, but I heard no cheap shots, just a clear message that "Obambi" isn't on the ballot.

Moving the convention to Invesco Field was risky, especially after the blowback from Obama's Berlin speech. But Obama wasn't diminished by the outsized venue; he grew to fill it.

It's a tough act to follow, and Hurricane Gustav, barreling toward the Gulf Coast, may make it even harder for the Republicans to grab the nation's attention. It will be interesting to see if the national media, so obsessed with the nearly invisible tensions between the Obamas and Clintons, spotlight the deep dissatisfaction many conservative Republicans have with their nominee. It should be fascinating to watch how McCain, the GOP delegates and the national media treat George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Republicans have demonstrated they can run a smooth convention. But they can also be nasty affairs - remember the Purple Heart Band-aids delegates wore in 2004 to demean Kerry's war wounds? Getting the emotional tone right will be a challenge for McCain, whose sense of political pitch isn't as refined as Obama's.

There has also been a role reversal between the parties this year. Obama's campaign has been the disciplined machine, consistently on message and on schedule. McCain's campaign has been an exercise in improvisation, led by a candidate who doesn't even follow his own gameplan.

But McCain has a heroic biography this week's convention will tell over and over again. He's convinced that improvisation is his strength, not his weakness. There's an advantage to the convention that goes last, giving the Republicans a decent shot at blunting Obama's Denver bounce and sending the race to the next ordeal: the debates.

Conventions are auditions. They are performance events that challenge would-be presidents to show what they've got. Do they have a message that resonates with the heartbeat of the body politic? Can they fashion and deliver that message so that it sticks? Can they develop and lead an organization that speaks with one voice and pulls together on a common agenda according to a coherent plan? Can they work with big egos, turning once and future rivals into teammates?

The judges for these auditions will deliver the scores on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Rick Holmes, opinion editor of the MetroWest Daily News, blogs at Holmes & Co. (). He can be reached at rholmes@cnc.com cnc.com

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